True Crime Audiobooks | Non-Fiction

Mob Daughter: The Mafia, Sammy Audiobook

From Karen Gravano, a star of the hit VH1 reality show Mob Wives, comes a revealing memoir of a mafia childhood, where love and family come hand-in-hand with murder and betrayal. Karen Gravano is the daughter of Sammy the Bull Gravano, once one of the mafia's most feared hit men. With nineteen confessed murders, the former Gambino Crime Family underboss and John Gotti's right-hand man is the highest ranking gangster ever to turn State's evidence and testify against members of his high-profile crime family. But to Karen, Sammy Gravano was a sometimes elusive but always loving father figure. He was ever-present at the head of the dinner table. He made a living running a construction firm and several nightclubs. He stayed out late, and sometimes he didn't come home at all. He hosted secret meetings at their house, and had countless whispered conversations with business associates. By the age of twelve, Karen knew he was a gangster. And as she grew up, while her peers worried about clothes and schoolwork, she was coming face-to-face with crime and murder. Gravano was nineteen years old when her father turned his back on the mob and cooperated with the Feds. The fabric of her family was ripped apart, and they were instantly rejected by the communities they grew up in. This is the story of a daughter's struggle to reconcile the image of her loving father with that of a murdering Mafioso, and how, in healing the rift between the two, she was able to forge a new life.

Karen Gravano, Lisa Pulitzer (Author), Karen Gravano, Lisa Pulitzer (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Serial Killer Whisperer: How One Man's Tragedy Helped Unlock the Deadliest Secrets of the World'

Fifteen-year-old Tony Ciaglia had everything a teenager could want—good grades, good athletic skills, and good friends—until he suffered a horrific head injury at summer camp. Pronounced clinically dead three times by helicopter paramedics before he reached a hospital, Ciaglia lapsed into a coma. When he emerged, his right side was paralyzed and he had to relearn how to walk, talk, and even how to eat. The areas of his brain that were damaged required him to take countless pills to control his emotions and rages. Abandoned and shunned by his friends, he began writing to serial killers on a whim and discovered that his traumatic brain injury—which made him an outcast to his peers—enabled him to emotionally connect with notorious murderers in a unique way. Soon many of America's most dangerous psychopaths were revealing heinous details to Tony about their crimes—even those they'd never been convicted of. The killers opened up to him, trusted him, and called him a "best friend." But there was a price. As Tony found himself being drawn deeper and deeper into their violent worlds of murder, rape, and torture, he was pushed to the brink of despair and, at times, forced to question his own sanity—until he found a way to put his unusual gift to use. Asked by investigators for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for help in solving a murder, Tony began launching his own personal searches for forgotten victims, incredibly with clues often provided to him voluntarily by the killers themselves. The Serial Killer Whisperer takes listeners into the minds of murderers in a way that has never been done before—straight from a killer's thoughts. It is also an inspiring—albeit sometimes terrifying—tale of an American family whose idyllic life is shattered by a terrible accident and how healing and closure came to a tormented man in the most unlikely way: by connecting with monsters.

Pete Earley (Author), Alan Sklar (Narrator)

Audiobook

Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony

Filled with explosive new information, this is the definitive inside story of the case that captivated the nation and the verdict that no one saw coming It was the trial that stunned America, the verdict that shocked us all. On July 5, 2011, nearly three years after her initial arrest, Casey Anthony walked away, virtually scot-free, from one of the most sensational murder trials of all time. She'd been accused of killing her daughter, Caylee, but the trial only left behind more questions: Was she actually innocent? What really happened to Caylee? Was this what justice really looked like? In Imperfect Justice, prosecutor Jeff Ashton, one of the principal players in the case's drama, sheds light on those questions and much more, telling the behind-the-scenes story of the investigation, the trial, and the now-infamous verdict. Providing an inside account of the case, Ashton, a career prosecutor for the state of Florida, goes where the press and pundits have only speculated, detailing what really happened during the investigation, showing how the prosecution built their case, and explaining how a woman so shrouded in suspicion was proclaimed innocent. Moving beyond the simple explanations, Ashton offers an in-depth look at the complex figure of Casey Anthony, a woman whose lies he spent three years trying to understand. And yet this focus on Casey came with its own risks; here he details how this widespread fixation on Casey; both in the media and in the trial, may have undermined the case itself. As everyone got caught up in the quest to understand the supposed villain, somehow the victim, Caylee, was all but forgotten, not just to the public, but more important, to the jury. Complete with never-before-revealed information about the case and the accused, Ashton examines what the prosecution got right, what they got wrong, and why he remains completely convinced of Casey Anthony's guilt.

Jeff Ashton (Author), Jeff Ashton (Narrator)

Audiobook

Inside the Mind of Casey Anthony: A Psychological Portrait

The trial of twenty-five year old Casey Anthony for the death of her daughter Caylee was the most sensational case in America since O.J. Simpson's with a verdict every bit as stunning. After being acquitted in July 2011, Ms. Anthony instantly became one of the most infamous women in the world. Dr. Keith Ablow distills tens of thousands of pages of documents he has obtained, his behind-the-camera, one-on one interviews, and his decades of experience in the world of forensic psychiatry to make sense of a woman whose defense attorney described as an innocent victim of childhood sexual abuse, but the state insisted was a cold-blooded murderer. Inside the Mind of Casey Anthony delivers an incisive, riveting way of understanding this troubled young woman.

Keith Ablow, Keith Russell Ablow Md (Author), Henry Leyva (Narrator)

Audiobook

American Desperado: My life as a Cocaine Cowboy

American Desperado is possibly the most jaw-dropping, event-filled, adrenaline-soaked criminal autobiography ever written. Like a real-life Scarface Jon was born into the upper levels of the Gambino crime family and witnessed his first murder at age seven. He became a one-man juvenile crime wave before joining an assassination squad in Vietnam. He returned to New York at age 20 to become one of the city's top nightclub promoters, then journeyed to Miami where he became the de facto transportation chief of the Medellin Cartel, and along with a tech-wizard partner, created some of the most sophisticated smuggling technologies ever. With a hulking 6'6' bodyguard always at his side, and a rural fortress protected by mortars, tear-gas cannons, and a gold-fanged attack dog, Roberts was brutally effective at what he did. To law enforcement, he was known as the 'Bearded Gringo,' a spectre they could never touch. To United States senators and CIA officials, he was 'the guy who can get things done'. He eventually formed a clandestine alliance with the US government and in the end found personal late-life redemption.

Evan Wright, Jon Roberts (Author), Christina Rooney, Erik Davies, Johnathan Mcclain, Kimberly Farr, Kirby Heyborne, Mark Bramhall, Mark Deakins, Meredith Scott Lynn, Steve Kramer, Thomas Vincent Kelly (Narrator)

Audiobook

Devil's Knot

'Free the West Memphis Three!''maybe you've heard the phrase, but do you know why their story is so alarming? Do you know the facts? The guilty verdicts handed out to three Arkansas teens in a horrific capital murder case were popular in their home state'even upheld on appeal. But after two HBO documentaries called attention to the witch-hunt atmosphere at the trials, artists and other supporters raised concerns about the accompanying lack of evidence. Now, award-winning journalist Mara Leveritt provides the most comprehensive look yet into this endlessly shocking case. For weeks in 1993, after the murders of three eight-year-old boys, police in West Memphis, Arkansas, seemed stymied. Then suddenly detectives charged three teenagers'alleged members of a satanic cult'with the killings. Despite stunning investigative blunders, a confession riddled with errors, and an absence of physical evidence linking any of the accused to the crime, the teenagers were tried and convicted. Jurors sentenced Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley to life in prison. They sentenced Damien Echols, the accused ringleader, to death. Ten years later, all three remain in prison. Here, Leveritt unravels this seemingly medieval case and offers close-up views of its key participants'including one with an uncanny knack for evading the law. 'Devil's Knot'leaves you wondering what new sick dread might be lying in wait on the next page, one of those that telegraphs the frustration and fear of its characters through the cover like a chunk of iron struck with a mallet. The monster Leveritt reveals in the end, however, is more terrifying than even the fork-tailed bogeymen conjured by West Memphis police and prosecutors to fit their crime. What Leveritt reveals to us is the most horrible fiend a rational person can imagine when matters of life and death are at stake: the Specter of Doubt.''Arkansas Times

Mara Leveritt (Author), Lorna Raver (Narrator)

Audiobook

Death in the City of Light

Death in the City of Light is the gripping, true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-Occupied Paris. As decapitated heads and dismembered body parts surfaced in the Seine, Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu, head of the Brigade Criminelle, was tasked with tracking down the elusive murderer in a twilight world of Gestapo, gangsters, resistance fighters, pimps, prostitutes, spies, and other shadowy figures of the Parisian underworld. The main suspect was Dr. Marcel Petiot, a handsome, charming physician with remarkable charisma. He was the "Peoples Doctor," known for his many acts of kindness and generosity, not least in providing free medical care for the poor. Petiot, however, would soon be charged with twenty-seven murders, though authorities suspected the total was considerably higher, perhaps even as many as 150. Who was being slaughtered, and why? Was Petiot a sexual sadist, as the press suggested, killing for thrills? Was he allied with the Gestapo, or, on the contrary, the French Resistance? Or did he work for no one other than himself? Trying to solve the many mysteries of the case, Massu would unravel a plot of unspeakable deviousness. When Petiot was finally arrested, the French police hoped for answers. But the trial soon became a circus. Attempting to try all twenty-seven cases at once, the prosecution stumbled in its marathon cross-examinations, and Petiot, enjoying the spotlight, responded with astonishing ease. His attorney, René Floriot, a rising star in the world of criminal defense, also effectively, if aggressively, countered the charges. Soon, despite a team of prosecuting attorneys, dozens of witnesses, and over one ton of evidence, Petiots brilliance and wit threatened to win the day. Drawing extensively on many new sources, including the massive, classified French police file on Dr. Petiot, Death in the City of Light is a brilliant evocation of Nazi-Occupied Paris and a harrowing exploration of murder, betrayal, and evil of staggering proportions.From the Hardcover edition.

David King (Author), Paul Michael (Narrator)

Audiobook

DarkMarket: CyberThieves, CyberCops and You

* The benefits of living in a digital, globalised society are enormous; so too are the dangers. * The world has become a law enforcer's nightmare and every criminal's dream. We bank online, shop online, date, learn, work and live online. But have the institutions that keep us safe on the streets learned to protect us in the burgeoning digital world? Have we become complacent about our personal security - sharing our thoughts, beliefs and the details of our daily lives with anyone who cares to relieve us of them? * In this fascinating and compelling book, Misha Glenny, author of the international bestseller McMafia, explores the three fundamental threats facing us in the 21st century: cyber crime, cyber warfare and cyber industrial espionage. Governments and the private sector are losing billions of dollars each year, fighting an ever-morphing, often invisible, often super-smart new breed of criminal: the hacker. * Glenny has travelled and trawled the world. And by exploring the rise and fall of the criminal website, DarkMarket, he has uncovered the most vivid, alarming and illuminating stories. Whether JiLsi or Matrix, Iceman, Master Splynter or Lord Cyric; whether Detective Sergeant Chris Dawson in Scunthorpe or Agent Keith Mularski in Pittsburgh, Glenny has tracked down and interviewed all the players - the criminals, the geeks, the police, the security experts and the victims - and he places everyone and everything in a rich brew of politics, economics and history. * The result is simply unputdownable. DarkMarket is authoritative and completely engrossing. It's a must-read for everyone who uses a computer: the essential crime book for our times.

Misha Glenny (Author), Misha Glenny (Narrator)

Audiobook

At the Devil's Table

In this riveting and relentless nonfiction thriller, award-winning investigative reporter William C. Rempel tells the harrowing story of former Cali cartel insider Jorge Salcedo, an ordinary man facing an extraordinary dilemma—a man forced to risk everything to escape the powerful and treacherous Cali crime syndicate. Colombia in the 1990s is a country in chaos, as a weak government battles guerrilla movements and narco-traffickers, including the notorious Pablo Escobar and his rivals in the Cali cartel. Enter Jorge Salcedo, a part-time soldier, a gifted engineer, a respected businessman and family man—and a man who despises Pablo Escobar for patriotic and deeply personal reasons. He is introduced to the godfathers of the Cali cartel, who are at war with Escobar and desperately want their foe dead. With mixed feelings, Jorge agrees to help them. Once inside, Jorge rises to become head of security for Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, principal godfather of the $7-billion-a-year Cali drug cartel. Jorge tries to turn a blind eye to the violence, corruption, and brutality that surround him, and he struggles privately to preserve his integrity even as he is drawn deeper into the web of cartel operations. Then comes an order from the godfathers that he can't obey—but can't refuse. Jorge realizes that his only way out is to bring down the biggest, richest crime syndicate of all time. Thus begins a heart-pumping roller-coaster ride of intensifying peril. Secretly aided by a pair of young American DEA agents, Jorge races time and cartel assassins to extract damaging evidence, help capture the fugitive godfather, and save the life of a witness targeted for murder. Through it all, death lurks a single misstep away. William C. Rempel is the only reporter with access to this story and to Jorge, who remains in hiding somewhere in the United States—even the author doesn't know where—but has revealed his experience in gripping detail. Salcedo's is the story of one extraordinary ordinary man forced to risk everything to end a nightmare of his own making.

William C. Rempel, William Rempel (Author), Fred Sanders (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Interrogator: An Education

Here are the confessions of a senior CIA operative who ran the interrogation of one of the highest profile al-Qaeda captives. Carle's journey is a tale of international intrigue, deceit, and betrayal-and an extraordinary and intimate portrait of our war on terror. To his friends and neighbors, Glenn L. Carle was a wholesome, stereotypical New England Yankee, a former athlete struggling against incipient middle age, someone always with his nose in an abstruse book. But for two decades, Carle broke laws, stole, and lied on a daily basis about nearly everything. He was a CIA spy. He thrived in an environment of duplicity and ambiguity, flourishing in the gray areas of policy. The Interrogator is the story of Carle's most serious assignment, when he was "surged" into the global war on terror to interrogate a top level detainee at one of the CIA's notorious black sites overseas. It tells of his encounter with one of the most senior al-Qaeda detainees the United States captured after 9/11, a "ghost detainee" who, the CIA believed, might hold the key to finding Osama bin Laden. But as Carle's interrogation sessions progressed, he began to seriously doubt the operation. Was this man, kidnapped in the Middle East, really the senior al-Qaeda official the CIA believed he was? Headquarters viewed Carle's misgivings as naïve troublemaking. Carle found himself isolated, progressively at odds with his institution and his orders. He struggled over how far to push the interrogation, wrestling with whether his actions constituted torture and with what defined his real duty to his country. Then, in a dramatic twist, headquarters spirited the detainee and Carle to the CIA's harshest interrogation facility, a place of darkness and fear, which even CIA officers dared mention only in whispers. A haunting tale of sadness, confusion, and determination, The Interrogator is a shocking and intimate look at the world of espionage. "Glenn Carle's The Interrogator is a remarkable memoir-for its searing personal honesty, for its portrait of the amoral secret bureaucracy of the CIA, and most of all for its revelation of how a decent American became part of a process that we can only call torture."-David Ignatius, New York Times bestselling author and columnist for the Washington Post

Glenn Carle (Author), Malcolm Hillgartner (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Imposter

A real-life Talented Mr. Ripley, the unbelievable thirty-year run of a shape-shifting con man.The story of Clark Rockefeller is a stranger-than-fiction twist on the classic American success story of the self-made man-because Clark Rockefeller was totally made up. The career con man who convincingly passed himself off as Rockefeller was born in a small village in Germany. At seventeen, obsessed with getting to America, he flew into the country on dubious student visa documents and his journey of deception began.Over the next thirty years, boldly assuming a series of false identities, he moved up the social ladder through exclusive enclaves on both coasts-culminating in a stunning twelve-year marriage to a rising star businesswoman with a Harvard MBA who believed she'd wed a Rockefeller.The imposter charmed his way into exclusive clubs and financial institutions-working on Wall Street, showing off an extraordinary art collection-until his marriage ended and he was arrested for kidnapping his daughter, which exposed his past of astounding deceptions as well as a connection to the bizarre disappearance of a California couple in the mid-1980s.The story of The Man in the Rockefeller Suit is a probing and cinematic exploration of an audacious imposer-and a man determined to live the American dream by any means necessary.

Mark Seal (Author), Erik Singer (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars

In Long Island, a farmer found a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discovered a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumbled upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime were turning up all over New York, but the police were baffled: There were no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives headlong into the era’s most perplexing murder. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus. Re-creations of the murder were staged in Times Square, armed reporters lurked in the streets of Hell’s Kitchen in pursuit of suspects, and an unlikely trio—an anxious cop, a cub reporter, and an eccentric professor—all raced to solve the crime. What emerged was a sensational love triangle and an even more sensational trial: an unprecedented capital case hinging on circumstantial evidence around a victim that the police couldn’t identify with certainty, and that the defense claimed wasn’t even dead. The Murder of the Century is a rollicking tale—a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that have dominated media to this day.

Paul Collins (Author), William Dufris (Narrator)

Audiobook

True Crime Audiobooks in Non-Fiction